Islam and Human Rights — Page 98
Isl am and Hum an R ights 98 though perturbed at the prevalence of sexual relations be tween college students, profess themselves helpless in face of the situation, particularly, as one of them has observed, when parents themselves not only see no harm in it but encourage it. Every society is entitled to set up and follow its own standards. Islam regards these offences as most heinous and injurious in their consequences. “Come not even nigh unto adultery; surely it is a foul thing and an evil way” (17:33). “Verily, those who slander chaste, un wary, believing women are cursed in this world and the Hereafter and for them is a grievous chastisement” (24:24). It would be amusing, were it not a matter so grave, that those who erroneously attribute to woman a position of inferiority in Islamic society, themselves hold a woman’s honour so cheap that a trespass against it is deemed to be sufficiently atoned for by the payment of monetary compen sation to the husband, in the case of adultery, and as used to be the case under the Common Law, to the father in the case of fornication which resulted in pregnancy and thus occasioned loss of service to the father. These are not, however, matters to which a uniform yard-stick can be made applicable. It is submitted that certain types of offences call for severe chastisement, and flogging in the case of such offences